NOTE: On Thursday, Dec. 13, at 9 a.m., The Utah Review will live blog the only live performance of Radio Hour Episode 13: Troll, produced by Plan-B Theatre and KUER-FM’s RadioWest program. Tune into KUER-FM 90.1 and follow The Utah Review during the broadcast. Four years ago for the Halloween season, Plan-B Theatre’s Radio Hour … Read more
More than the first half of Sackerson’s marvelously inventive premiere production of The Distance of the Moon overflows with magical expectations. Weaving together the lines of Italo Calvino’s short story converted to dialogue, the story line additions of playwright Morag Shepherd, the spot-on choreography of Breanne Saxton and the translucent sound design of Shawn Francis … Read more
For this holiday season, the wonderfully unconventional Sackerson theatrical company turns to the peculiar magic of The Distance of the Moon, one of the short stories that Italo Calvino wrote more than a half century ago as part of his unique Cosmicomics collection. At its surface, this fantastical tale springs from the incidental scientific premise … Read more
Can one of the world’s oldest plays be relevant today? It’s a question you ponder while watching the University of Utah Department of Theatre’s production of “Big Love”—a play based on a story that is thought to have originally been performed in 470 B.C. Despite it being about a forced marriage between cousins, the answer … Read more
There is a lovely Eighties vibe in PYGmalion Productions’ season opener of Tigers Be Still, a 2010 play by Kim Rosenstock. Each of the four characters struggles to cope with depression brought on by significant events or circumstances. And, in this pleasing production, a Utah premiere directed by Elizabeth Golden, the comedic touches bring out … Read more
In the Pulitzer-finalist play “The Wolves,” nine teen-agers burst onto a stage made of Astroturf, in braids and pigtails, and launch into overlapping backchat about tampons vs. pads, the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, and how to pronounce Hermione, as they stretch for an upcoming soccer game. As an audience member of this mesmerizing play … Read more
At one point in Good Standing, certainly among the top three original plays ever produced by Plan-B Theatre, Curt (played by Austin Archer), facing the 15 men who will decide if he should be excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because he married a man, tells us there are no secrets … Read more
Indeed, life imitates art. On Oct. 8, a packed Browning Center for the Performing Arts room on the Weber State University campus in Ogden patiently waited for the first public performance of Plan-B Theatre’s Zombie Thoughts, the sixth play of its annual Free Elementary School Tour (FEST) program. Developed around the theme of generalized anxiety … Read more
Five years ago, when Matthew Greene’s first play was produced by Plan-B Theatre, Adam & Steve and the Empty Sea centered on how two characters (Steve, a young gay man, and Adam, whose Mormon mission was cut short by illness) in California develop a close friendship then struggle to preserve it as they come of … Read more
At 11, Oliver Grey Kokai-Means already can claim that a play he created and wrote with his mother, playwright Jennifer Kokai, is being produced and will be viewed by thousands over the next month and half in Utah. Zombie Thoughts is the sixth play of Plan-B Theatre’s Free Elementary School Tour (FEST), which takes the … Read more